IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/intlab/v163y2024i2p295-323.html

The labour market and tax policy drivers of self‐employment: New evidence from Europe

Author

Listed:
  • Balázs ÉGERT
  • Annabelle MOUROUGANE

Abstract

Using cross‐country time series panel regressions for 1995‐2022, this article seeks to identify the main labour market and tax policies affecting self‐employment in European OECD countries. It uncovers heterogeneous policy impacts for different forms of self‐employment and considers how the share of self‐employment correlates with changes in policies along dimensions including sex, age and skills. Minimum wages and employment protection legislation appear to be robustly associated with changes in the long‐term share of own‐account self‐employment, whereas the share of self‐employment with employees appears to coincide with changes in the tax wedge and unemployment benefits. Deindustrialization is found to be positively correlated with self‐employment, which exhibits some cyclical properties.

Suggested Citation

  • Balázs ÉGERT & Annabelle MOUROUGANE, 2024. "The labour market and tax policy drivers of self‐employment: New evidence from Europe," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 163(2), pages 295-323, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:intlab:v:163:y:2024:i:2:p:295-323
    DOI: 10.1111/ilr.12422
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/ilr.12422
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/ilr.12422?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Åstebro, Thomas & Chen, Jing, 2014. "The entrepreneurial earnings puzzle: Mismeasurement or real?," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 88-105.
    2. Elert, Niklas & Henrekson, Magnus & Stenkula, Mikael, 2017. "Institutional Reform for Innovation and Entrepreneurship: An Agenda for Europe," Working Paper Series 1150, Research Institute of Industrial Economics, revised 16 Feb 2017.
    3. Caliendo, Marco & Künn, Steffen, 2011. "Start-up subsidies for the unemployed: Long-term evidence and effect heterogeneity," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(3-4), pages 311-331, April.
    4. Dvouletý, Ondřej, 2018. "How to analyse determinants of entrepreneurship and self-employment at the country level? A methodological contribution," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 9(C), pages 92-99.
    5. Stock, James H & Watson, Mark W, 1993. "A Simple Estimator of Cointegrating Vectors in Higher Order Integrated Systems," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(4), pages 783-820, July.
    6. Robert Fairlie, 2020. "The impact of COVID‐19 on small business owners: Evidence from the first three months after widespread social‐distancing restrictions," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 727-740, October.
    7. Paolo Borghi & Anna Mori & Renata Semenza, 2018. "Self-employed professionals in the European labour market. A comparison between Italy, Germany and the UK," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 24(4), pages 405-419, November.
    8. Concepción Román & Emilio Congregado & José Millán, 2011. "Dependent self-employment as a way to evade employment protection legislation," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 37(3), pages 363-392, October.
    9. Román, Concepción & Congregado, Emilio & Millán, José María, 2013. "Start-up incentives: Entrepreneurship policy or active labour market programme?," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 151-175.
    10. Torrini, Roberto, 2005. "Cross-country differences in self-employment rates: the role of institutions," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(5), pages 661-683, October.
    11. Koellinger, Philipp & Minniti, Maria, 2009. "Unemployment benefits crowd out nascent entrepreneurial activity," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 103(2), pages 96-98, May.
    12. Henrik Jacobsen Kleven & Martin B. Knudsen & Claus Thustrup Kreiner & Søren Pedersen & Emmanuel Saez, 2011. "Unwilling or Unable to Cheat? Evidence From a Tax Audit Experiment in Denmark," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(3), pages 651-692, May.
    13. Hans J. Baumgartner & Marco Caliendo, 2008. "Turning Unemployment into Self‐Employment: Effectiveness of Two Start‐Up Programmes," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 70(3), pages 347-373, June.
    14. Niklas Elert & Magnus Henrekson & Mikael Stenkula, 2017. "Institutional Reform for Innovation and Entrepreneurship," SpringerBriefs in Economics, Springer, number 978-3-319-55092-3, December.
    15. Tito Boeri & Giulia Giupponi & Alan B. Krueger & Stephen Machin, 2020. "Solo Self-Employment and Alternative Work Arrangements: A Cross-Country Perspective on the Changing Composition of Jobs," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 34(1), pages 170-195, Winter.
    16. Wiji Arulampalam & Andrea Papini, 2023. "Tax Progressivity and Self-Employment Dynamics," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 105(2), pages 376-391, March.
    17. Baumann, Florian & Brändle, Tobias, 2012. "Self-employment, educational attainment and employment protection legislation," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(6), pages 846-859.
    18. Frank M. Fossen, 2021. "Self-employment over the business cycle in the USA: a decomposition," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 57(4), pages 1837-1855, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Annabelle Mourougane & Balazs Egert & Mark Baker & Gábor Fülöp, 2020. "The Policy Drivers of Self-Employment: New Evidence from Europe," CESifo Working Paper Series 8780, CESifo.
    2. Ignacio Moral-Arce & Javier Mart n-Rom n & ngel L. Mart n-Rom n, 2019. "Cessation of Activity Benefit for Spanish Self-employed Workers: A Heterogeneous Impact Evaluation," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 231(4), pages 41-79, December.
    3. Horemans, Jeroen & Marx, Ive, 2017. "Poverty and Material Deprivation among the Self-Employed in Europe: An Exploration of a Relatively Uncharted Landscape," IZA Discussion Papers 11007, IZA Network @ LISER.
    4. Raquel Carrasco & Virginia Hernanz, 2022. "Dependent self-employment across Europe: involuntariness, country’s wealth and labour market institutions," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(14), pages 1568-1583, March.
    5. Elisabeth Lopez-Perez & Ana Rodriguez-Santiago & Emilio Congregado, 2020. "Persistence in Self-Employment Rates before the Great Lockdown: The Case of the UK," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(16), pages 1-13, August.
    6. Jean-Marc Zogheib & Marc Bourreau, 2021. "Public vs. Private Investments In Network Industries," Working Papers hal-04159754, HAL.
    7. Juan Sanchis Llopis & José María Millán & Rui Baptista & Andrew Burke & Simon Parker & Roy Thurik, 2015. "Good times, bad times: entrepreneurship and the business cycle," Post-Print hal-02013660, HAL.
    8. Congregado, Emilio & Fossen, Frank M. & Rubino, Nicola & Troncoso, David, 2024. "Long-Term Effects of Shocks on New Opportunity and Necessity Entrepreneurship," IZA Discussion Papers 16930, IZA Network @ LISER.
    9. Nardo Vries & Werner Liebregts & André Stel, 2020. "Explaining entrepreneurial performance of solo self-employed from a motivational perspective," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 55(2), pages 447-460, August.
    10. Emilio Congregado & Antonio A. Golpe & Vicente Esteve, 2019. "On the Substitutability between Paid-employment and Self-employment: Evidence from the Period 1969–2014 in the United States," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-17, January.
    11. Elert, Niklas & Stenkula, Mikael, 2020. "Intrapreneurship: Productive, Unproductive, and Destructive," Working Paper Series 1367, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    12. Marco Mariani & Alessandra Mattei & Lorenzo Storchi & Daniele Vignoli, 2017. "The ambiguous effects of public assistance to youth and female start-ups between job creation and entrepreneurship enhancement," Econometrics Working Papers Archive 2017_04, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Statistica, Informatica, Applicazioni "G. Parenti".
    13. Ali Hussein Samadi, 2019. "Institutions and entrepreneurship: unidirectional or bidirectional causality?," Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research, Springer;UNESCO Chair in Entrepreneurship, vol. 9(1), pages 1-16, December.
    14. Caliendo, Marco & Künn, Steffen & Weissenberger, Martin, 2020. "Catching up or lagging behind? The long-term business and innovation potential of subsidized start-ups out of unemployment," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(10).
    15. Catherine Laffineur & Saulo Dubard Barbosa & Alain Fayolle & Emeran Nziali, 2017. "Active labor market programs’ effects on entrepreneurship and unemployment," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 49(4), pages 889-918, December.
    16. Marianna Brunetti & Anzelika Zaiceva, 2023. "Is Self-Employment for Migrants? Evidence from Italy," CEIS Research Paper 563, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 31 Jul 2023.
    17. Nikolaos Filippopoulos & Georgios Fotopoulos, 2024. "Employment protection and regional self-employment rates in an economic downturn: a multilevel analysis," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 72(2), pages 617-646, February.
    18. Niklas Elert & Mikael Stenkula, 2022. "Intrapreneurship: Productive and Non-Productive," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 46(5), pages 1423-1439, September.
    19. Can Ege & Fossen Frank M., 2026. "Income Taxation and Hours Worked in Different Types of Entrepreneurship," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 26(1), pages 245-297.
    20. Emilio Congregado & Vicente Esteve & Antonio A. Golpe, 2013. "From complements to substitutes: Structural breaks in the elasticity of substitution between paidemployment and self-employment in the US," Working Papers 09/13, Instituto Universitario de Análisis Económico y Social.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:intlab:v:163:y:2024:i:2:p:295-323. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ilounch.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.